The Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) Scholarships and Awards Committee has selected Catherine Phan as the recipient of the 2012 APALA Travel Award. Catherine is the Digital Services and Metadata Librarian at the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center (UWDCC) where she manages the design, production, and maintenance of metadata for digital collections of all kinds. Since its founding in 2000, the UWDCC has worked collaboratively with the UW System faculty, staff, and librarians, cultural heritage institutions, and public libraries throughout the state to create and provide access to digital resources that support the teaching and research needs of the UW community.

Catherine received her master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) in 2009. At SLIS, she gained a variety of experiences working in and with libraries and librarians across the university and the state. Past positions include assistant to the Southeast Asian Bibliographer, reference and information services assistant at MERIT Education Library, and founding member of SLIS’s Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums project and class. Catherine is an active member of several professional organizations, but is especially excited to be a new member of APALA and she looks forward to meeting fellow APALA members in the future.

APALA provides a forum for discussing problems of APA librarians and for the exchange of ideas between APA librarians and other librarians, supports and encourages library services to APA communities, recruits and mentors APA librarians in the library/information science professions, seeks funding for scholarships in library/information science master’s programs, and provides a vehicle enabling APA librarians to cooperate with other associations and organizations with similar or allied interests. To become an APALA member, visit our website http://www.apalaweb.org/